Parabellum Investments, German firm Syntegon partner to tackle counterfeit drugs

Parabellum Investments-backed Advanco and pharmaceutical packaging company Syntegon have announced a serialisation partnership to tackle the growing malice of counterfeit medicine.

Advanco and Syntegon, both members of the OPEN SCS (Open Serialisation Communication Standard) working group, are committed to develop an open standard for the healthcare industry to fight counterfeit drugs. Open standards will be vital to stem a potential tide of fake drugs and vaccines to treat Covid-19 as countries around the world struggle to recover after the pandemic.

The counterfeit drug market is estimated to exceed $75bn. Given that 10 per cent of pharma products worldwide are estimated to be counterfeit, leading to one million annual deaths, the partnership will aim to secure every stage of the supply chain – from the production line to the pharmacy and right through to the patient – helping prove authenticity.

The partnership combines the strength of Advanco’s leading site manager system (ARC), which handles the serialisation and aggregation processes, with Syntegon’s machines for packaging pharmaceutical products and drugs.

Rami Cassis, Dubai-based CEO and founder of Parabellum Investments, which acquired Advanco in 2020, said: “Regulatory compliance for serialisation is increasingly becoming a focus area for pharmaceutical manufacturers and supply chain partners across the world, positioning firms such as Advanco at the very heart of the ongoing evolution of the entire pharma industry.

Alf Goebel, CEO of Advanco, said: “With most developed and developing economies having either already laid out the regulatory road map for serialisation, or in the process of doing so, cost and time savings will be increasingly important for the pharmaceutical industry, especially due to Covid-19.

“Never has it been so important for product serialisation services to work together to minimise costs for pharmaceutical companies. The advent of the virus will most certainly accelerate the implementation of agile supply chain regulation – this will require a strong industry-standard open interface and interoperability.”

Parabellum Investments, a privately-owned, global investment firm, has offices in London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Istanbul, Dubai, and Sydney, and acquires companies in the lower mid-market, primarily using its own funds.